SV Fortuna Bottrop has announced the departure of its current coach at the end of the season. With immediate effect, the district league club is looking for a new head coach.

SV Fortuna Bottrop and coach Sebastian Stempel will go their separate ways from the summer onwards. This is the result of talks between the club’s board of directors, the sporting management and coach Stempel. The club made the official announcement.

“We have made this decision anything but easy for ourselves, because Sebastian enjoys great esteem at Rheinbaben. Sebastian Stempel deserves our thanks for the great work he has done in what is now almost five years,” said Fortuna’s sports director Gerd Sparfeld.

Fortuna Bottrop is in a good 7th place in the table in the Bezirksliga Staffel 7 in the Lower Rhine region, a group with the strong teams from Essen. The SV board also stressed that the separation has nothing to do with the current sporting performance.

“We will try something new. We are very happy with the development and the current sporting situation of our 1st team, but we must not misjudge that the direction and future of the club is more elementary than the current sporting situation,” emphasised chairmen Rafael Brenci and Henning Ritter in unison.

The board duo went on to say: “Therefore, after careful consideration within the board and with the sporting management, we have come to the conclusion that we do not want to go into the next season with the current personnel constellation. This has nothing to do with Sebastian Stempel as a person. With all the adversity in the last few years, Sebastian always got more out of it than could be expected.”

The 44-year-old Stempel has been head coach at Fortuna Bottrop since 1 July 2018. After five years he will then call it a day in the summer and as of now a successor is also being sought.